ASO Facts You Probably Don’t Know About

You may have read some guide, followed every step. But the visibility of your apps hasn’t increased that much.

As App Store doesn’t reveal its search algorithm, the only way to figure it out is to experiment and make conclusions. And that is what we’ve been doing with our apps’ ASO. Here are some observations that you may benefit from.

Including a singular form of a keyword doesn’t guarantee the app will rank for the plural of the word

You’ve probably heard that it’s enough to include either a singular or a plural form of a certain keyword to rank for both of them? This doesn’t work!

Our recent app Valentine box has “ecard” in the keyword field. Does it rank for “valentine ecard”? Yes, and very well. Does it rank for “valentine ecards”? Not at all. On the other hand, there is “frames” in the keyword field, and “stickers” in the title. And the app ranks well for “sticker” and “frame”.

Conclusion: opt for the plural form instead of a singular if you want to target both forms. And if the space permits, write both forms just in case.

Using popular apps’ names in keywords may be a great idea

Yes, Apple disapproves of this. However, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Include the name of your competitor into your keywords list, and you may get some of this app’s traffic. But don’t forget to first check how many apps already use the word in their keywords (use Sensortower or AppAnnie to find that out). There are more than 3,000 apps with “flappy bird” in their keywords list, so you don’t want to compete with these.

To be on the safe side, pick competing apps’ names that are generic. For example, there is a popular photo app “Fragment”. This word will fit well into the keyword fields of many photo apps, which may increase their visibility due to the word’s impressive traffic. Of course, this will work only in case your app offers something similar (or better) than this competitor.

Conclusion: include some of your competitors’ names in your keyword research field

The titles of apps ranking the highest for your target keywords are crucial

Sometimes you find a great keyword, but the number of apps ranking for the keyword scares you off. It’s too early to give up. Browse through the titles of these apps. If they don’t contain the keyword, you still have a chance to rank for the word. App Store places way more value on title keywords than on keyword field keywords. Similarly, if you’ve find a perfect keyword with great traffic and low difficulty score, there is no need to cram it into your title. Adding it to the keyword field will be enough to rank high for the keyword.

Conclusion: include the keywords with the highest difficulty score in your title, especially if your competitors don’t do that.

By the way

Free AppAnnie account helps you greatly to track ranking changes after you release an update with new keywords.

Just include them while your update is waiting for the approval. And when the version is live, you’ll momentarily see how the app has done ASO-wise. It’s a great idea to include your current target keyword phrases to see whether the updated keywords hurt your rankings.

Want to get more actionable tips? Keep coming back to our blog. Or! Sign up for our soon coming, absolutely free and very promising user engagement service for app publishers – AppDK.